Psychic predictors of outcomes of physical therapy

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relations between alexithymia, temperament features, depression and anxiety levels and level of benefit from physical therapy. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Fifty-eight patients in a physical therapy program were included in this study. Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), Temperament Evaluation of the Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A), Beck Depression Scale (BDS) and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were used before the treatment. Response to treatment parameters were as follows: pre-treatment, 10th session and 3rd month resting and activity pain was evaluated using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS-R, VAS-A), patients' self global evaluation (PSGE), doctors' global patient evaluation (DGPE) and Nottingham Health Profile (NHP). RESULTS: At the end of treatment, significant recovery was obtained in VAS-R, VAS-A, PSGE, DGPE, NHP-pain, NHP-physical mobility and NHP-energy scores. No changes were found in NHP-sleep, NHP-social isolation and NHP-emotional reaction scores (p> 0.05). Except for the recovery percentage of TAS and NSP-energy, no relations between TAS and other parameters were detected (p< 0.05). Only the recovery percentage of the PSGE parameter revealed significant negative correlation with depressive, cyclothymic and anxious temperament means of TEMPS-A (p< 0.05). Other temperament features of TEMPS-A (hyperthymic, irritable) revealed no correlations. Significant negative correlations were found between BDS and PSGE, and VAS-A (p< 0.05). No correlations were found between BDS and other parameters, or between STAI scores and response parameters (p> 0.05). CONCLUSION: Although pain, life quality and doctor evaluation of the patients in the physical treatment program improved greatly after the treatment, no favorable results were obtained for patients who had high depressive, cyclothymic, anxious temperament and depression scores. It was detected that alexithymia and anxiety scores revealed no effect in this evaluation. © 2013 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.